Sources
The character of Politick is connected to a tradition of politically involved individuals that frequent coffee-houses. These include the character Upholsterer featured in the Tatler and Beaver the Haberdasher from the Spectator. The type of character also appeared in multiple plays that Fielding would have known, including: Toby Clincher in Sir Hary Wildair (1701) and Postscript in The Generous Husband: or, The Coffee-House Politician (1711). The general idea behind Politick are an incarnation of the news of the day and his discussions involve many events that were contemporaneous with the play. Real newspapers and their reports are mocked throughout.
Other characters are likewise connected to a traditional type within Restoration literature; Squeezum is related to the corrupt politician Quorum in Charles Coffey's The Beggar's Wedding (1729) or the Justice of the Peace in Coffey's The Female Parson (1730). Other works use the same character type, including Butler's Hudibras, Thomas Baker's The Humour of the Age (1701), Swift's Project for the Advancement of Religion, and the Reformation of Manners (1709), and Christopher Bullock's The Per-Juror (1717). Of course, Fielding's own works, including The Author's Farce, The Old Debaucheees, and The Covent-Garden Tragedy includes the character type. However, as Thomas Lockwood points out, "These earlier stage justices are precedents more than sources, as the scope and development of the Squeezum character are beyond anything to be found in these other examples."
Read more about this topic: Rape Upon Rape
Famous quotes containing the word sources:
“The American grips himself, at the very sources of his consciousness, in a grip of care: and then, to so much of the rest of life, is indifferent. Whereas, the European hasnt got so much care in him, so he cares much more for life and living.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Even healthy families need outside sources of moral guidance to keep those tensions from implodingand this means, among other things, a public philosophy of gender equality and concern for child welfare. When instead the larger culture aggrandizes wife beaters, degrades women or nods approvingly at child slappers, the family gets a little more dangerous for everyone, and so, inevitably, does the larger world.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (20th century)
“My profession brought me in contact with various minds. Earnest, serious discussion on the condition of woman enlivened my business room; failures of banks, no dividends from railroads, defalcations of all kinds, public and private, widows and orphans and unmarried women beggared by the dishonesty, or the mismanagement of men, were fruitful sources of conversation; confidence in man as a protector was evidently losing ground, and women were beginning to see that they must protect themselves.”
—Harriot K. Hunt (18051875)